


Living for the Day

by RayneSummer



Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, drakes deception, post-London end, pre-France & Syria, sits in the cutscene of them talking in Charlie's flat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-15
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2018-08-15 04:37:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8042863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RayneSummer/pseuds/RayneSummer
Summary: Chloe was never a family person. She's barely a loyal person, except to precious few.And it's those few that need her loyalty and love the most.





	Living for the Day

Chloe sighed as she glanced away from the window that only showed boring wet London backstreets. Not that the activity in Charlie’s apartment was much more interesting; Sully leaned against a counter in the kitchen area, drying some mugs and absently what sounded like humming to himself, while Nate had taken his mentor’s previous seat at the table and was incredibly immersed in the information they had acquired.

On cue, as Chloe was about to speak up, Charlie came stomping back up the stairs and all three occupants of the room looked up in expectance or, in Nate’s case, mild irritation of the unnecessary loud noise.

Charlie raised an eyebrow at their attention. “What? I’m not the bloody queen.”

Nate returned to his papers with an exasperated sigh, Sully huffed what could have been a chuckle, and Chloe rolled her eyes good-naturedly. As Charlie headed for one of his shelves loaded with hardbacks, she slipped off the windowsill and stretched casually before walking over to him.

“What you looking at now?”

He glanced at her with a slight smile. “Why; fancy helping, darlin’?” His smirk widened at Chloe’s expression of distaste regarding the idea of research. She was definitely not a library girl – action was very much more her style.

As she shook her head in a polite manner and Charlie turned his attention back to the books, Chloe caught movement out of the corner of her eye; Nate finally took his eyes off the papers in front of him and dug his palms into his eyes for a moment.

He pinched the bridge of his nose with a pained grimace and barely audible sigh, eyes scrunched shut against whatever was hurting him. As Chloe wandered back over to the table, Nate took a deep breath as if steeling himself and started rubbing his forehead with one hand, the other vaguely resting on the papers.

She leaned against the table, scrutinising him in an unchararistically sincere way. “What’s up?” Chloe asked, expecting no answer.

Sure enough, Nate immediately dropped his hand back to the tabletop and blinked at her in a bemused way. He even had the audacity to offer what could kindly be called a reassuring smile.

Chloe closed her eyes for a brief second, pushing her instinctual annoyance down. Nate pretended to focus back on the books and stuff, but his expression conveyed exhaustion and pain. Up close, she could see that he was unusually pale, bruises standing out almost stark on his face, barely decipherable from the dark circles under each eye, tokens of too many sleepless nights and stress.

Moving to sit on the table instead of leaning against it, Nate shifted a little and continued to pretend to ignore her as Chloe pondered how best to talk to him. Behind Nate, she briefly caught Sully’s gaze, keeping an eye on his protégé and watching to see how he might react to unwanted communication.

She swung her legs a little under the table, studying Nate’s act of concentration. “You can’t take information in if you’ve got a headache,” Chloe said sensibly. He actually looked up, almost surprised.

This time, Nate visibly hesitated, then opted for the non-verbal neither-agreeing-nor-disagreeing shrug. As if the way he was practically squinting at her wasn’t enough.

Not to mention that he – and Sully – were still wearing the blood-ruined suits they’d gotten ‘shot’ in; it definitely didn’t do their beaten up appearances any help.

Chloe pushed off the table with a little jump and stepped over to the windows, reaching for her bag tossed on the floor beside Charlie’s bed. She crouched to rummage inside it and raised her voice a little to address Sully as well. “Do you two even have a change of clothes?”

Sully raised an eyebrow in mild amusement of the question. “Well yeah,” he replied in an obvious-sounding way as Chloe found what she was looking for and straightened up, turning around to face the boys.

Nate had stopped listening and didn’t even seem to be aware of them talking – he was staring off at nothing, eyes unfocused. Nearby, Charlie had picked a book he’d deemed relevant and took a seat on his sofa, absently half paying attention to the others.

“Hey.” Chloe frowned at Nate when he didn’t react and took a step towards and in front of him, snapping her fingers with a loud click. “Hello? Earth to Nate?”

He started as if suddenly jumped out on and looked up at Chloe with surprise. “Wha- Chloe? Uh, yeah?”

She knew her expression was close to pitying as she gazed at him, but she almost couldn’t help it. Nate was always an active person, used to leading and fighting, a cocky smirk on his face most of the time to hide any emotions that shouldn’t be able to be read from his face.

But when tired or injured he became helplessly vulnerable, the shields at their lowest as with most people when sick and ill, unable to keep the façade up much or not at all. Chloe had seen it; seen his expression that moment Flynn’s bullet smashed into his body.

And she never wanted to have to see it again.

Almost lost in thought, Chloe gave a small self-conscious cough and rattled the bottle of painkillers she’d picked from her stuff, both to bring herself back to the present and catch Nate’s attention.

“Here,” she said in a quieter tone than usual, and instead of tossing the paracetamol at him like she would typically do, Chloe walked right up to the table and held it out in front of him. “For your head.”

He gave her what was a rather suspicious look but took the bottle all the same, squinting at the label as is making sure she wasn’t trying to poison him or something.

“Nate. It’s painkillers. Just take them.” Chloe said the statements flatly, expression determinedly neutral as she gazed at him.

A ghost of a smile flickered on his face, the shields back up as much as possible in his exhausted state. “Are you concerned about my mental health or…” He trailed off, a somewhat cocky eyebrow raised.

Resisting the urge to hit him, she instead went for narrowing her eyes in a suggestively dangerous way. “Just take them and stop being an ass. You’ll thank me later,” she added.

He looked like he wanted to talk back some more, but his expression pinched in pain and with a resigned-like shrug he popped the lid and shook two pills into the other hand, forehead wrinkled in distaste.

Chloe walked to the kitchen area, towards Sully, while Nate frowned unhappily at the tablets, and picked up a clean (or at least, not obviously dirty) glass cup to fill with water. Stepping back over to the table, she put the glass down with a dramatic sigh in front of Nate.

“It’s unbelievable that you guys aren’t dead from lack of looking after yourselves,” she commented, folding her arms. Sully chuckled quietly and Nate gave her a look verging on deeply hurt.

Charlie, who was still sitting on the couch and pretending to still be reading his book, watched over the back of the sofa in amusement while Chloe literally stood over Nate, almost glaring, as he took the supplied pills with water.

Once he had swallowed them and made an exaggerated face of not enjoying it, Chloe picked the pill bottle back up and went to return it to her bag, muttering loud enough for the guys to hear.

“Better put it away in case these children manage to accidently overdose or something.” Sully chuckled again, since he was usually the one trying to take care of Nate, and Charlie made a sound of disbelief.

She turned to the sofa with a questioning look as he sat up to address her. “Do you really think we’re that inapt?” He sounded quite offended by the very idea.

“Wouldn’t know, but better safe than sorry.”

“Look, love-“

“Talking of,” Chloe interrupted Charlie’s argument of successfully maintaining at least himself, and looked around the room with a critical eye. “In having no desire to get woken up by midnight and having to call an ambulance, no one is actually hurt, right?”

There was a general mumble of “nah”, “course not”, and “what kind of hurt”, and Chloe nodded in a satisfied way.

“Good.” She watched Nate take another sip of water and lean back a little in the hard wooden chair, but it was better than nothing. Behind him, Sully watched too, worry prominent in his expression – but he knew Nate too well to think the kid would let Sully take care of him.

Charlie put the unread book down, finally, and straightened up while glancing at a clock on the wall. “You do know it’s gone midnight,” he pointed out reasonably.

She absently leaned against the bit of wall inbetween windows, still keeping an eye on Nate almost in front of her.

“Whatever. And we’re probably not going to get any sleep tonight,” she added, resisting a sigh. “But I don’t have a 999 in this phone’s call history and would rather not end up with one.”

Nate squinted at her and opened his mouth to say something before Sully spoke up in a sceptical way, “do you even have phones long enough to get a call history?”

On the sofa, Charlie sniggered and Chloe casted a mock-glare at him, but didn’t defend her phone’s honour, since it was rather true she wasn’t entirely brilliant at keeping phones working – or, well, even intact enough to resemble the technology.

Instead, she shrugged as if she didn’t care or it didn’t matter, and waited for Nate’s comment.

“Don’t you use 911?” He asked, genuinely sounding confused.

“This is England, mate,” Charlie offered in way of reply, and stood up, briefly stretching his arms.

Chloe decided to give a little more information to the lifelong American. “It’s 999 here in Britain – and, like, the whole country – and 911 in America and Australia and… stuff,” she said helpfully.

“And stuff?” Sully repeated only slightly mockingly. “How long have you been travelling around the world?”

She rolled her eyes, bored already with the conversation, but at least it was more amusing than discussing dying slowly in a desert thousands of miles away.

Fortunately, the current phone in her pocket trilled a cheery notification sound and she pulled it out to take a look.

“What is it?” Nate asked vaguely, looking finally somewhat relaxed in the chair, leaning back with hands on thighs and work temporarily forgotten.

So that was why Chloe read the notification out without paying proper attention to it. “It’s your turn at the game with Ele-“

The room may as well have been caught in some kind of time lapse, the way Chloe cut herself off abruptly but too late, and Nate’s expression took on hundreds of emotions in a second as Sully froze behind him.

She cleared her throat lamely and caught Sully’s frantic look of ‘what are you doing?!’ as Nate blinked all the feelings away, clearing his face, and looked down at his hands, clenching them.

In the corner of her eye, Chloe saw Charlie subtly sit back down on the sofa. He was never one for getting caught up in any kind of relationship. Though he didn’t often have a problem with them either; but the apparent mess that Nate’d made between him and his estranged wife wasn’t something that even Chloe had the heart to yell at him for.

Well, not right now anyway. Maybe when he looked a little less like he knew how the world was going to end next week.

“Anyone for hot cocoa?” Sully suddenly asked, hastily gesturing at the kitchen area he stood in. Chloe almost winced. Poor guy got the worst of it. He cared a lot about Elena too.

Instead of trying to input some consideration – or, more probably, yelling some sense – into the mentioned issue, she pointed at the kitchen in attempted enthusiasm, announcing “now that is a great idea.”

Nate didn’t really react other than shifting slightly and glancing at the papers on the table as if desperately trying to distract himself. “Yeah…” He managed to say in accordance to the hot drink, briefly looking up at Chloe’s unusually serious gaze.

She sighed silently and pushed off the wall she was leaning on, heading to the kitchen to help Sully out, but stopped right beside Nate, who blinked up at her as she rested a hand on his shoulder.

Feeling a little out of her depth, Chloe settled for patting her friend’s shoulder and looking at his almost gaunt-looking face. She gave him a small smile, because if she didn’t know him better she’d have said he looked about to cry.

But she knew him better, and he was already controlling the brief slip in emotions, so she just followed up the smile with some kindly words, softer than she’d typically use.

“Have a drink and get some sleep, yeah? Got places to be in the morning.”

He just nodded and offered a smile in return, before deliberately turning his attention to the papers on the table, gathering them up in a busy fashion. Chloe took the hint and dropped the hand from his shoulder, standing there for a moment more before stepping into the kitchen area beside Sully, who gave her a genuine warm smile in thanks.

Then Charlie got up from the sofa again, judging the situation diffused, and moved to turn on the small TV by the bookshelf opposite him.

And just like that, they fell back into casual chat, with glimmers of excitement about the upcoming adventures to France and Syria in their faces, talking about the treasure and the desert and the rumoured city.

Chloe hummed quietly to herself as she stirred a pan of milk on the small stove. She knew she ought to be distracting and immersing herself too, because in this profession it wasn’t prudent to think.

Thinking too hard would just get you killed. And there was no time for that now.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not exactly sure what this even is but I just started writing at midnight last night while watching u3 cutscenes and this happened in a few hours and I don't regret much bc it's not half bad and CHLOE I love her so much anything with her in is golden~


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